Theme of Silence in Manju Kapur’s Novels

This paper deals with the theme of silence in Manju Kapur‟s novels. Manju Kapur is a distinguished, feminist, English fiction writer of our times. She is equally popular in India and abroad. She has written six novels so far namely – Difficult Daughters, A Married Woman, Home, The Immigrant, Custody and Brothers. She has received prestigious Common Wealth Award for the best first book, Difficult Daughters. Among other, Home was short listed for Hutch Cross Word Award and The Immigrant was shortlisted for the DSC Prize of South Asian Literature in 2011. So she has acquired well deserved name and fame in the English Fictional World. While depicting the plight of Indian women in our patriarchal society she inspires her protagonists to be aware about their equal rights, break the silence, and raise their voice for individual identity. It is her unique artistic skill that while portraying her female characters like Virmati, Nisha, Asha, Nina, Shagun and Tapti, Kapur lends them a forceful voice along with a much needed inspiration for struggle necessary for their imancipation and a tinge of revolt, matched with the post modern thinking to evolve a „New Woman‟. I have taken all her six novels for my analysis.